So this is a good question, the issue is that all PhDs must master the historiography appropriate to their research interests. The historiography of all geographic regions and time periods is not feasible. So even if you were interested in pursuing an analysis of historiographical tradition you would still need to chose a chronological and geographic focus.

If you are really interested in the philosophy of history you are probably best looking for intellectual history programs but even here many programs will expect that you have a particular temporal or geographic focus.

I mean, there are infinite subdivisions of knowledge that are not represented by PhD programs. The question about getting a "dedicated PhD" in any subject is: why? Is the subject so specialized that it cannot be done by another, existing discipline? (In this case, no: history includes historiography, and one can specialize in historiographical topics for ones' research and thesis.) Is there a job market demand for this specialized PhD that does not exist already? (Definitely not.) Are there lines of students looking to do this kind of work, to sign up for these programs? (My sense is "no.")

A PhD in History is already extremely flexible, depending on where one is at, and there are indeed many historians who focus almost exclusively on historiographical, philosophical, intellectual, critical, or craft-based topics. Splitting a new program off would require developing new curricula, new dedicated faculty, and enticing new students — all difficult work for something that has not shown much of a need or a demand.

Hey there,

Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.

If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!